Primary Framework, Guided Writing session

The course today focussed teachers on developing Guided Writing opportunities as part of the Primary Framework. As we know, the Primary Framework builds on much of the work already done in the National Literacy Strategy, so we spent some of the day looking at some of the refinements.

The highlight was a presentation given by a Leading Teacher, Emma from Earls Colne, who demonstrated how Guided Writing was being run and developed in her own classroom. There were several aspects which I noted and will develop in my own classroom practice.

I was impressed to see how Emma had encouraged peer review and assessment of each others' work something which I do on a regular basis as an oral exercise. However, Emma had the pupils annotating and highlighting examples where pupils had met the success criteria. The children's books were 'alive' with comments and highlights, each one suggesting either success or areas for development / improvement.

We watched a clip from the Primary Framework of a class teacher sharing the Success Criteria on large sheets of paper around the room meaning that the children are able to access and refer to these throughout. In addition to these, there were also the indicators of success, like a checklist of things that needed to have been met to reach success.

Something that stuck in my mind from the course today is the shift from teachers controlling the learning to enabling learners to drive it forward for themselves. High quality teaching is now about providing the pupils with 'pathways' through their learning.

Forest Schools

This is a programme to encourage schools to take their children outdoors, no matter what the weather. The presentation today talked about how children in Foundation benefited from outdoor experiences, looking at fallen leaves, acorns, jumping over logs, following a 'night-line', firelighting and generally getting very muddy.

There are often so few opportunities to get outside in the curriculum, that this initiative was about developing the curriculum around outdoor adventure at a very early age. I thought it gave children the experiences they wouldn't ordinarily receive at home, and for the older children, especially, give them real-life experience for writing reports, developing oral literacy too.

The main issues for enabling this to happen will be identifying a local woodland that can be used and how to transport the pupils to the site. The school who presented this session used parents to drive the pupils to the woodland which isn't necessarily possible for all schools. A colleague suggested borrowing a minibus from the local secondary school as an alternative solution.

Sedan Chairs

Scouts had quite (!) a lot of fun racing up and down the hall in Sedan Chairs having learnt how to tie a square lashing. Later, we gave them a bowl of water to carry on their laps which made the event all the more exciting. This is how learning something telatibely uninteresting can be made both fun and engaging.